Live on Sky News.
This is Sharry Good Evening tonight. The total overreaction to Donald Trump's tariffs that will have barely an impact in Australia. Matt Canavan, Adam Crichton and Basil Zemplus will be here to discuss this is The coalition says we should look at lifting the ban on American beef.
But at the end of the day, I mean we should always be looking at our bios security protocols and making sure they're fit for purpose.
Something we should consider what.
We should always be considering those protocols and we should be asking our customers to consider them.
My exclusive interview with the Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor coming up also in the show, where charity takes legal action against the Albanezy government over a planned wind farm and the double standards of the teals exposed. That's all coming up, but first tonight, let's cut the spin of Albaneze's confected outrage over Donald Trump's trade tariffs and look at what's actually going on here. There are three questions we're going to talk about tonight. Why is Trump doing this, what
will the impact be? And should alban Easy have been so angry Now, this is one of the most significant moves that Trump has made as president, and we need to understand his motivation before we can debate the tariffs and the impact that they'll have in the shot and long term, both in America and on globalization. Today the President held a press conference in the Rose Garden, where he claimed the day was historic.
My fellow Americans, this is liberation Day waiting for a long time. April second, twenty twenty five will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.
This was a day a long time in the making. In fact, Trump has been campaigning on a fairer trading environment for Americans since nineteen eighty eight. He's been consistent about this policy, yep, for thirty seven years. Here he is in an interview with Oprah speaking about evening up the playing field.
I'd make our allies forgetting about the enemies, the enemies you can't talk to so easily. I'd make our allies pay their fair share. We're a debtor nation. Something's going to happen over the next number of years with this country, because you can't keep going on losing two hundred billion. And yet we let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets and everything. It's not free trade. If you ever go to Japan right now and try
to sell something, forget about it. Open, just forget about it. It's almost impossible. Kuwait they live like kings. The poorest person in Kuwait they live like kings. And yet they're not paying We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren't paying us twenty five percent of what they're making. It's a joke.
Fascinating interview. And of course Trump also campaigned on this during the presidential election, and he's one of the only politicians who actually does wood he pledges. You can compare that to Albanize's own broken promises. Now. In his novel He'll Billy Elegy jd Vance Now, the Vice President wrote about his hometown in Ohio, and he wrote that today downtown Middletown is little more than a relic of American
industrial glory. His novel, of course, was a worldwide sensation because it captured the picture of local jobs disappearing, unemployment, skyrocketing, poverty, consuming communities and at all being replaced by cheap imported goods to the financial benefit of foreign nations. Now, Trump pledged to return manufacturing to America to make his treat greater again. This is partly why he appealed so strongly to white working class voters, and it is the sentiment behind his Liberation Day tariffs.
Today, this will be indeed the Golden Age of America. It's coming back.
In a dramatic touch. Trump even drew the comparison with America's Declaration of Independence, written of course by Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers.
This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history. It's our declaration of economic independence. For years, hard working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense.
So the idea behind tariffs on important goods to America is to encourage factories to create products in America and of course create jobs. Trump spoke of supercharging America's domestic industrial base, and he says more production at home will ultimately mean lower prices for consumers. Trump invited up to the Rose Garden press conference, a worker who spoke about the sentiment behind JD. Vunce's best selling novel.
I have watched my entire life, I have watched plant after plant after plant in Detroit and in the Metro Detroit area close. There are now plants sitting idle. There are now plants that are underutilized. And Donald Trump's policies are going to bring product back into those underutilized plants. There's going to be new investment, there's going to be new plants built, and in six months or a year, we're going to begin to see the benefits.
And the move to return to local manufacturing is popular in the Ross Belt states with working Americans, the blue collar class, and Trump, as I said, campaigned on this very issue of import tariffs, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Now, we do need to look at how they worked out the reciprocal tariffs, so they're called, were calculated by adding the foreign nation's tariffs plus the value of any trade barriers that America says they have
in place, and then Trump charged them half that amount. So, for example, Trump says China slaps tariffs of around sixty seven percent on American imports. So he's put tariffs of thirty four percent on Chinese inports. Now, the tariffs don't take effect until April the ninth, and the President has signaled he's open to negotiations and these will unfold in the coming days. But he did have a firm.
Message likewise to all of the foreign presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, ambassadors and everyone else who will soon be willing to ask for exemptions from these tariffs. I say, terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers, don't manipulate your currencies.
Now, as I mentioned, Trump claims the tariffs are reciprocal, but we've already seen in Australia as one of them countries, squabbling about the calculations. Well, they can do this during the negotiations. Now, this is a very dramatic measure that Trump has taken to force the revitalization of their manufacturing industry. We know the pandemic highlighted the problems with relying, particularly on Chinese markets. It was a wake up call that
were overly reliant on foreign imports and supply chains. But thinking behind this is to yes, of course, raise revenue, reduce America's debt, but also to increase America's self reliance and independence rather than relying on foreign countries for critical goods, particularly an enemy that's growing more hostile like China. Again, you can disagree or agree with the tariffs, but it's critical to understand first where this movement is coming from and why it's so popular, at least in part in
the US. So that's why Trump is implementing these trade tariffs. Now, the second question is Albanesi's response like this warranted.
But the Australian people have every right to view this action by the Trump administration as undermining our free and fair trading relationship and counter to the shared values that have always been at the heart of our two nations long standing friendship. This will have consequences for how Australians see this relationship.
In my view, he took this too personally. It was over the top, and it showed a failure to understand the political movement behind Trump in America. And it was also curious when the whole point of the American movement is very similar to the motivation behind Albanese's own Future Made in Australia program, except Trump isn't throwing money at
green hydrogen programs. Now, it's also important to note that Australia has had a five percent customs duty or import tax for years, for decades, So Albanezi is beyond furious about a ten percent import tax when we have literally had a five percent tax on every imported product that wasn't subject to a free trade agreement for decades. On top of this, we do, have, of course, our ten percent Goods and Services tax that's applied to all imported goods.
So you could argue that imported products have had a fifteen percent tax on them. America's ten percent tariff is quite comparable. Now. Secondly, alban Easy claims of America that this isn't what friends do.
The administration's tariffs have no basis in logic, and they go against the basis of our two nations partnership. This is not the act of a friend, all right.
Well, if he wants to speak about the act of a friend, do friends call the immediate past presidents of our closest allies village idiots and say they're scared of what they're going to do, Because that's how Albinizi and rud have treated their so called friend in Trump.
We have an alliance with the US.
We're going to deal with him, but that doesn't mean that you're uncritical about it.
He scared it.
Out of me, as the United States in the last four years has been run by a village idiot.
Yeah, the Prime Minister's right, that's not what friends do. They don't insult the residence of our closest ally now. Albanisi was also very worried today about Australian beef.
Books.
Our understanding is that there is a I heard President Trump's comments that were made. Our understanding at this point is that that is a ten percent tariff across the board. On the first question, yes, we have received confirmation that what we thought was the case, that it's just a ten percent tariff. Similarly, the comparers. I just spoke with the head of the National Farmer's Federation about fifteen minutes
ago as well and confirmed that with him. I've also spoken to beef producers and confirmed it with them.
And he announced a fifteen million dollar subsidy for the beef industry. But alber Ezy was pretty angry and concerned about the prospect of an American ban on Australian beef. But he does realize that Australia bans American beef entirely bans it. As Trump pointed out today.
They won't take any of our beef. They don't want it because they don't want it to affect their farmers. And you know what, I don't blame them, but we're doing the same thing.
Now. The ban, as you probably know, was introduced because of biosecurity concerns owing to mad cow disease. But now the US has basically eliminated this, and yet the ban remains. Now. Of course I can understand Ossie beef farmers feeling anxious tonight, but Australian beef could actually come out of this equation in a better position than it is now. And I'll explain why. Canada and Mexico supply around twenty four percent of US beef imports, the same as Australia does, yet
their tariffs are higher. Canada and Mexico both subject to around twenty five percent tariffs announced by Trump, higher than the ten percent on Australia. Now, American produced beef will be cheaper, but they don't have the capacity to increase their production, at least not in the short term. That'll
take years. So in terms of the competition to fill the American need for beef, Well, Australia's beef will be cheaper than the higher tariffs and Canadian and Mexican beef, so this could, depending on how it plays out, even be of benefit to Australia. We could even see our beef xpots increase. But it's also strange Albanese's angry response to a ten percent tariff from the US compared to
when China entirely banned our beef, wine and balley. He's giving money to the beef industry, but there were no subsidies, for example, to the Australian wine industry, which was hurt very badly. Even DEAC made it by the Chinese ban. And also, if Albanesi is so worried about the cost on business, then why doesn't he remove the two point three billion dollar climate stranglehold he's putting on businesses here
in Australia. The ten percent tariff equivalent to our GSD pales in significance to the billions of dollars Albanzi is strangling businesses with in the name of climate compliance. Now to the last question, well, what impact will these tariffs actually have? Well, that depends on whether countries retaliate and global trade protectionism returns. In America, prices are expected to rise in the short term until cheaper local products are
produced again. That might take some time, although already we've seen the companies and Trump spoke about this today, companies including Apple, Hyandai, Johnson and Johnson, and Eli Lilly are planning to expand their operations in America in response to the tariffs. Now Goldman Sachs has reportedly estimated that prices could rise by half a percent to one percent in
the States. In terms of the global picture, the Wall Street Journal's editorial predicts that if countries try to negotiate with the US to reduce tariffs, the damage could be mild up, but if the response is widespread retaliation, the result could be shrinking well trade and slower growth, recession or worse. And it says there could also be erosion of US competitiveness, harmed to American exports, reduced American influence
on the global stage. And they say it could provide a major opportunity for China to caught our traditional allies like South Korea, Japan and even Europe. Now Sky's Business editor ross Green would also highlighted some of the concerns around the potential impact of rising in flat and he said even that could then lead to possible interest rate rises.
Perhaps Australia will be impacted by more goods coming in from places like Cambodi, Vietnam and China, and we've got to be very careful in this country that we don't certainly find dump goods also affecting Australian jobs and Australian manufacturers.
Not all experts, though, agree global geopolitics experts Stephen Kotkin, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, challenged the view that Trump's posturing and the rebalancing that he's set in motion signals that the US is retreating from the world. He says, this is not about America giving up its role in the world. All of that
is social media rubbish. This is about a rebalancing of the costs and benefits, and it's happening, and it's mess and Trum's version of it is going to maybe even fail to produce a new equilibrium, but it's going to break the current equilibrium that needed to be broken. So yes, there are concerns about where this will all settle, and the markets of course will be rocky in the meantime. But as with anything to do with Trump, the reaction
today has been over the top and disproportionate. Okay, for further analysis, let's bring in National Senator Matt Canavan and leader of the WA opposition Basil Zemplus. Great to see you, guys. Matt. There's been a very patronizing attitude towards these tariffs. But this is what Trump campaigned on. It's what he said he was going to do. It's why Americans, particularly in the working class states, voted for it.
Well, Charry, I wish Donald Trump and the US administration were to putting these tariffs on Australia, but I didn't get a vote on the US presidency. He's been elected, as you say, he was elected on that platform. What we need to do is respond in the way we best can to protect to Austraya's interest what we should do, and it's been instructive this week that finally I see the Prime ministers say that in his response to Donald Trump's tariffs, he's going to put Australia first. Well, why
hasn't he been putting Australia first the whole time. What is why has it taken Donald Trump for him to say something like that and encourage people to buy Australian made products. I actually think I have this sort of sort of sneaking suspicion that Anthony Alberanez he actually was relishing this outcome. He seemed almost giddy this morning. I don't think he's put up much of a fight here
to try to stop these tariffs coming in. He's actually most welcome this because it gives him something to campaign on and apparently look tough, et cetera. But he's not being tough. He's not being putting Australia first, because, as you've just said in your editorial, he's smashing the Australian
people with higher energy prices, higher grocery prices. I mean, if we're going to have this sort of reaction from the Prime Minister for a ten percent tariff on some of our exports to US, which just five percent of our exports, if it's going to generate a cent tariff's condgenerate that sort of outrage. Why isn't the Prime Minister as outraged as the thirty percent increase in grocery prices that Australian families have had to suffer under his leadership.
Why hasn't he focused on that? Why is he focused on the self imposed tariffs that his government is placing on our energy system, in our grocery supermarkets, through our transport businesses as well, that are adding costs onto everybody.
I wish he was so angry.
About the damage he's doing to the Australian economy compared to only being angry about the responses he doesn't like being made by Donald Trump.
Yeah, such a good point, Basil. What's your view on the tariffs but also how this played out today? Do you agree with me that there was this overreaction to what is quite is going to impact Australia really in quite a minimal way.
Well that could be the case.
In fact, you could argue, and we won't know the full effects until we get going through the process, but you could argue that in fact Australian beef producers may in fact end up being better off. Donald Trump is playing to his base and by appearing to try and stand up to Donald Trump. Although pretty mildly I agree with Matt, the Prime Minister is playing to his bass who you would naturally accept, not Donald Trump.
People.
That sort of makes sense, But I can't help watching this think if Anthony Albanezi was serious, and we know Donald Trump is a relationship guy, if he's trying to make this election somehow a referendum on who's going to deal better with Donald Trump and his tariffs, I think he's playing into Peter Dutton's hands. Peter Dutton will get on a plane, he'll get over there and he'll get on well with Donald Trump.
And it feels to.
Me that relationships could have averted this tariff imposition that's come on to Australia. And that's not a trump card. Pardon the pun that Albaneze has played. And I've got to say also the rud stuff now really coming back to buy it. It was always going to it really is now no absolutely well.
One thing that could make a difference in the negotiations to have this ten percent lifted if it's worth it is potentially removing those biosecurity protocols around American beef. It is something that Angus Taylor says we should consider. I asked him about this in a pre recorded interview. Have a quick look but at.
The end of the day, I mean we should always be looking at our biosecurity protocols and making sure they're fit for purpose.
Something we should consider what.
We should always be considering those protocols, and we should be asking our customers to consider them.
Matt, what do you think about this? I mean, mad cow disease is extremely rare now in the United States. As Andrew Bolt said earlier, people aren't getting sick in America from eating beef, so why is it banned?
Look, Shari, you might expect me, as a Nationals Party politician, to take a slightly different perspective on this. We're very lucky to have a very strong biosecurity system and the costs of having mad cow disease come to this country would be in the tens of billions. I think it's been measured at about forty billion dollar impact on Australia huge. We'd have massive coals, these movements of cattle restricted. It would be horrible for our nation, so we want to
keep it out now. In terms of the US, you're right to say that since the US did have a case in twenty two thousand and three or some case twos and three they have got rid of it largely in their own country. But the problem is the US has not been able to assure us that the beef that we would or could import from the US could not contain Mexican or Brazilian beef where there is mad cow disease. Now it's not actually exactly true to say
that we ban American beef. We do allow American beef to come into Australia if it can show that it is actually American beef. Unfortunately, the United States does not have the kind of supply chain assurance that we do in this nation, so they can't give us a guarantee that what's in the box has actually come from a Texas farm or a Californian farm, and not a farm from south of the border. I support our biosecurity system. I think our provisions here are rules here, are very reasonable.
We are happy to work for the US if they can apply some kind of supply chain insurance that we have in this country.
If they can do that, we're happy to talk. If they can't.
Look, we've got to put our biosecurity first.
Okay, interesting look making news today, as well as the fact that the Prime Minister had a bit of a tumble at a mining conference here.
He was photos with everyone.
Okay, perhaps since when ALBINIZI starts falling up the stairs like Joe Biden did that, we have.
To worry, Basil.
He actually tried to hold onto the leg of one of the union members that was there, but look he was quick to recover and turn this into a joke. I guess these things happen and then they suddenly become a story when you're in the middle of a campaign.
They do. I don't love that stuff.
I mean, I think they're cheap shots all round, and not anyone in particular that's taking them. But obviously they become a story for the evening news.
We get it.
I don't think Australians generally love.
That sort of stuff.
Everybody's going to stumble or tumble at times, and I think a little bit of discretion and a little bit of fair play for everybody. Nonetheless grabbing onto the leg of a union official. Maybe it is representative of other things that are at play at the moment, and unfortunately these incidents always open themselves up through those sorts of lines.
Indeed, they do, all right, Matt Canavan, Basil Zempler is great to see you as always on a Thursday. Okay, let's get some more analysis about Trump's tariffs, and I'm joined now by IPA senior fellow and chief economist Adam Crichton. Adam, thanks for your time. Look what's your take on these tariffs? Are they reciprocal at least with Australia and do you think are they're a bad idea?
Well, just a few points there, Sharry, your editorial I think was very right. The Prime Minister's rhetoric is so over the top here. The implication is that the US has somehow put new taxes on Australians, but no Australian will be sending a single cent to the US treasury as a result of these tariffs. They are taxes on Americans, specifically American importers, and they will ultimately increase the prices
of goods and services for Americans. So it's a quasi consumption tax, and I would argue that this is therefore a matter for the United States. In fact, as you also said, Australia ended up with the lowest rate of all applying to the imports from Australia, only ten percent. I think Japan got twenty percent, the European Union twenty four percent, so we've actually done pretty well out of this new policy of the United States. The second point
is the fiscal situation in the US. There are two trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, and these tariffs will raise about seven hundred billion dollars. Now, if the US government is not going to cut spending by two trillion dollars, and I don't think it will, then this is practically the only alternative alternative that it has. And just very quickly, finally, on all the doom and gloom forecasts, the stock market in Australia only fell by
one percent today, which was a pretty small move. So certainly investors do not see these tariffs as the end of the economic world.
Yeah, the stock market's one thing, and that's going to move around. But what about the concerns that some have, and including the Wall Street Journal mentioned this about how it could potentially the tariffs be inflationary. What's your view on that.
Well, look, they could be.
I mean the first round of tariffs, certainly they were much smaller in twenty eighteen from the first Trump presidency on China, but there wasn't such a huge impact on inflation back then, And I'd just be very wary of the economic consensus because certainly we've seen in the last ten years you know that the consensus of economists tends to get the big things wrong. So I would be reluctant to say that this is going to be hugely inflationary.
We haven't seen huge changes in the ten year US bond yield, which suggests to me that the forecast for inflation haven't really changed a great deal. You know, these are basic. This is basically a huge quasi consumption tax on Americans from my point of view, So there will be an increase in price, but some of the burden, of course, will be born by the exporters from other countries. We just we don't know as yet kind of how the burden will actually fall.
I want to ask you about a couple of other topics, but very quickly. While this has been Trump's policy for a long time, the current US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, he is considered to be pretty smart. He knows what he's doing. Would you agree with that, Oh.
Certainly, yes, he's a multi billionaire. I think he's largely so made, almost entirely self made, very smart man and very highly respected in markets.
I would say so he.
Would know what he's doing here. I mean he's implementing.
This, yes, yes, well, obviously he's implementing Donald Trump's policies. We don't know his private views necessarily, but he's certainly. He certainly puts himself out there as a very articulate spokesman.
All right, just want to get your view. And a couple of other topics that have been big news today. Firstly, the issue of the Teals and their hypocrisy. It's front and center. They've been accused of double standards for refusing to comment on that inappropriate joke by the Bradfield Teal candidate Nicolette Bowl at the hair salon. The Liberals have put together an ad to highlight the point. If we have that, let's play it. As your member four keon, I will act with integrity and honesty.
It's the question of do you practice what you preach?
Teal MP already made headlines earlier this week accused of shouting at children in a quarrel with Liberal volunteers.
Ryan's husband tearing down one of your liberal rivals campaign signs.
There you go, Monique Ryan, there you go, Community values.
It's been a really good day for integrity and transparency in Australia Parliament today.
Adam, this is double standards, isn't it. Why can't they comment on their own inappropriate comment?
Well, look, I think they're trying to play a small target strategy, like many politicians are in this election. I think I think it's fair to say overall the brand of the Teals has not done so well in the first week or so of the campaign. They haven't been falling off stages yet, but certainly you know, the hair salon joke, the core Flutes drama. It's not been a good first week for them.
No, absolutely not. And the biggest revelation for me this week was when Ray Hardley told me that men don't get their hair washed in hair salons. I literally had no idea about that. I can't imagine a man leaving a hairdressing salon without getting their hair washed. Okay, well maybe you Adam, finally got to cover this story. Hamas has has admitted that seventy two percent of Palestinian deaths were combat aged men, so terrorists, and they've revised down
their figures. This is quite extraordinary and we haven't really seen this broadly covered well.
Certainly, that doesn't shock me at all. I mean, the first casualty of war is truth, and there's always an incentive for governments to exaggerate or to change figures to help their cause. And it would not shock me at all with the case of a mass here that they've been exaggerating the death figures to generate an emotional response
around the world. So look, if there's any silver lining to this ongoing tragedy in the Middle East, at least they're trying to put out the correct figures, I guess, but they should have done that in the first place. But I think I think the broader lesson is don't seize on the casualty and the death figures of various governments in war time because they probably don't even know what they are themselves. But there's always an incentive to exaggerate for their own purposes.
Or inflating death figures. I mean, we always knew that was the case, and now the proof starting to emerge. Adam Crichton, thank you very much for your time. Now still to calm the Albanezy government facing a battle between a wind farm and saving the koalas. I have that fascinating story in a moment, Plus, Angus Taylor tells me Australia is bound on American beef could be reconsidered. That's
all coming up, welcome back. Or Albanizi and Tanya Plubisek have a new legal headache to contend with in their race to renewables. A Queensland environment charity has started legal action against the government as well as and Andrew Forrest backed renewable energy company. This is over concerns about a planned wind farm near a heritage protected wilderness, which it said will cause too much environmental damage. Joining us to
discuss his associate editor and chief writer Theustralian, Christine Midup. Christine, this is a fascinating story. Can you tell us about this legal fight and what's behind it.
Yes, So, this is a wind farm planned to be.
Built just near the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area up in far North Queensland. It borders a National park and a state forest and it's quite environmentally rich area. So where the wind farm is going there's something like twenty two vulnerable or threatened species that live in that area. So This little group called Rainforest Reserves is a small charity in North Queensland. They do things like run at Cassowary Sanctuary, they plant trees, they buy up rainforest.
But they've become increasingly concerned.
About the damage to the environment from different renewal projects, particularly wind farms going down the sort of Great Dividing Range up in North Queensland and Central Queensland. So they decided they would take this case to court. It's actually being heard in the Federal Court at the moment. It's a difficult case this little charity. They don't have a lot of money. They've got about one hundred.
And fifty members.
They're up against the Federal government and all of their resources, and also against wind Lab, which is an Andrew Forrest back company.
So there's been a lot of concerns in local communities about when farms like this one. And you've characterized this in your article in The Australian as the ultimate David and Goliath battle, as you say, it was in the Federal Court today. What's your feel on how this is going to go and whether the charity will have the finances to continue this battle.
Well, it's a difficult case. And their lawyers will accept that. It's a difficult case because they can't just bring on a case that says this is going to cause so much damage.
I mean, we're talking about six hundred hectares of habitat.
That supports Koala's vulnerable wallabies, lots of birds and bat species.
So they can't just argue about the damage. They have to pick out a judicial argument.
And so this is turning on very sort of technical approval conditions as part of this sort of overall decision. So it's not an easy case to bring. It's an uphill battle. I mean, I think they've really got it ahead of them, but I think what they really wanted to do as well, is, you know, they wanted to do something. This group has become really concerned about the damage to the environment and they want to highlight that and this is one way for them to do it.
We've seen, and I don't know how widely you've reported on these sort of issues, but we have seen communities in other areas concerned about the impacts that when farms could have on say the whale population. So this isn't just limited to this charity in this area, is it.
No, it's not.
I mean if you go all the way down from far North Queensland down through central Queensland, down through northern New South Wales into Victoria. I mean I wrote about Kusiosco National Park on the weekend, which has got a major scar going through it now to build transmission lines to get the energy out of snow two point zero.
There are widespread concerns about the environmental damage due to really poor planning. I think about a lot of the renewables rollouts, and a lot of scientists I speak to also say they see problems with this.
The bigger environmental groups green groups are a bit more silent on it.
They don't want to do anything to sort of dampen the rollout.
But smaller groups environmental groups, they are really standing up now and saying we have to do something before you know, this gets to a point that we can't turn back.
Yeah. Yeah, fascinating reporting and a really worrying issue. Christine mid Upp, thank you so much for your time. All right, still to come, a high profile defamation lawyer Nicholas Pullen will give his verdict on how the explosive recording of Nick McKenzie could impact the Ben Robert Smith case.
Plas.
Angus Taylor weighs in on the Trump impact of those tariffs. That's after this quick break. Returning now to tonight's top story, Trump's trade tariffs. Well for more insight into what this means for Australia, our economy and how the Coalition would handle this, I spoke a little earlier to Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor. Angus Taylor, thank you very much for your time.
Great to be with your shary.
Dominating the agenda today, of course, are Donald Trump's trade tariffs. He slapped the lowest ten percent on all Australian imports to the United States. He says they're reciprocal. Do you agree with him?
No, I don't.
We don't have tariffs on American goods coming into Australia
of anything like that kind of magnitude. We haven't had a free trade agreement with the United States for nine twenty years now, and that's been important in facilitating trade and good trade between Australia and the US, including our exports of beef and so I don't accept that, but I do think there's real rumors they're always with Don is with Donald Trump to negotiate a better outcome, and the government should be acting now to ensure that we're
in a position where we can negotiate a better outcome with Donald Trump. One of the things we know, for instance, with beef exports, is that American beef consumers will have to pay more as a result of this because they're short of beef.
Right now.
The beef herd has dropped significantly because of drought. There's still rebuilding, and so I think there's a real opportunity for us.
To get in and negotiate.
The problem is this government hasn't had good relationships with this administration as we did with the last Republican administration, and the result is they're not in a position to get in and negotiate the sorts of outcomes we should.
Could he be referring to our goods and services tax of ten percent when he talks about having reciprocal tariffs.
Sure, they might be talking about that, but that's not discriminatory. It's applied equally to imported goods versus domestic goods. There's no difference in the regime between inputs and domestic purchases. So how that can be seen as a discriminatory tariff against inputs makes no sense.
We have also had a five percent customs duty, including when the Coalition was in government. So again the customs duty, that's not really really any different to an import tariff that Trump's speaking about, is.
It, except that it didn't apply in the case of the United States because we had a free trade agreement. So that's a default tariff which applies very rarely these days, only to a very small proportion of traded goods, because at the end of the day, we've got free trade agreements with most countries which we put in place, which we put in place. So the important point here is that the free trade agreements have put us in a
position where our customs duty doesn't apply. GST is not discriminatory, and so the result is this is a tariff being imposed which is not reciprocal and it will hurt American consumers. But we've got a government that simply doesn't understand the beef market frankly, but also more importantly doesn't have the connections into the administration we had that. I saw that personally when I was the Minister for Cybersecurity with the
last administration. I worked on the decision we made on Huawei, working closely with the United States throughout that we had a very close relationship because Joe Hockey was essential to that.
The last phone call the Prime Minister's had with Trump was on February the tenth, so it has been a long time. The President today spoke about Australia's ban on beef expots from the United States. The reason that was in place was by security reasons mad cow disease. That's no longer an issue anymore, so should that be lifted.
Well, it's not a ban.
It requires certain protocols to be followed if beef.
Is effectively is to come in.
But at the end of the day, I mean we should always be looking at our bios security protocols and making sure they're fit for purpose. And you know that's something that we take Well, I'm not going to appinn on that one now. I think that's one where you take advice from the experts.
Something we should consider.
What we should always be considering those protocols and we should be asking our customers to consider them. I mean, I worked very hard to get Australian cherries into Asian markets, and we worked very hard to get protocols changed, and we should always be seeking to do that. But when I take a step back, the Coalition has been always been the one to open up these markets and get
this working. We've understood the markets, We've represented agricultural parts of Australia much more than the Labor Party, and we've had deep, deep links into the last Trump administration and we can do that again. But you've also got to be prepared to say this is unacceptable and we have a strong relationship with the US. We have done throughout our history and we can do better than this.
Donald Trump is emerging as a dominant figure in this election campaign. Somewhat surprisingly, the research in the published polls show that Australians are concerned about Trump. They view him as erratic and unreliable. Do you think this is working as a negative for Peter Dutton and the Coalition because Albin Ezi is comparing Dutton to Trump.
Look, Albenezy will do that. He's desperate.
It's student politics every day of the week with this guy, and the same with his treasurer. I mean, let's focus on the main issues here. This is a government that has absolutely failed to deal with the cost of living crisis. We've got our standard of living has collapsed. It's been unprecedented, worse than any of our peer countries in the world.
We're not going to get back to.
Where we were when we were asking government under their plan until the twenty thirty.
This is a hopeless situation for Australia to.
Be And the worst part of this is we are seeing an uncertain world and the Reserve Bank Governor, in her statement earlier in the week, used the word uncertainty five times. We are in a more uncertain world than we have been for a long time, and yet the government has left us in a position where we don't
have the buffers. Our government budget is reading as far as the eye can see, and household budgets have been decimated, so our capacity to absorb shocks that might come through is not anything like it was.
And that's that bad situation to be.
Just on the IRBA you mentioned the governor. Of course, the RBA didn't even have a discussion about cutting rates in this board meeting. Do you think that shows that the rate cut at the last board meeting was premature and even potentially politically motivated.
Look, I'm not going to comment on Reserve Bank decisions. I mean I think that ultimately should be left to be independent. What I do know is I think the government has made it harder for them to cut interest rates. Core inflation in Australia has remained higher than other peer countries across the world, and that, at the end of the day makes it harder for the Reserve Bank to bring down interest rates. We've also seen the government projecting ready as far as the eye can see. That makes
it harder to bring down interest rates. So it's not surprising that we're being slow to see the reductions in interestrates. And of course we've seen between three and seven cuts in Canada and Europe, in New Zealand in the UK, and of course that's not been the case here.
All right, Angus Taylor, really appreciate your time in the middle of a busy campaign.
Good to be with you, Shary all right.
Coming up next, high profile defamation lawyer Nicholas Pullen will give his verdict on how that explosive recording of Nick McKenzie could impact on the Ben Robert Smith case. That's next. Welcome back. Well. There will be a two day hearing on May first and second in the Federal Court for Victoria Cross recipient Ben Robert Smith to argue his case that the defamation judgment made against him should be set aside. This is in light of the audio recording where nine
journalist Nick McKenzie admitted to breaching his ethics. He also admitted to obtaining part of Robert Smith's legal strategy.
No, I shouldn't tell you I've just breached my ethics doing that. Like this is where like this is to really cheap position. There if they knew that impeting you, that actively breaking us on his legalship, you respected you like the his piece, and yet we're not learning about we anticipated most of it. One or two things now we know, which is helpful. But he's about.
Ben Roberts, Smith's father, the former Justice of the Supreme Court, Len Roberts, released his statement earlier this week where he said there were questions about what legal strategies of Ben's McKenzie was referring to questions too, about what privileged information or material Ben's ex wife, Emma and her friend Dannielle Scott told McKenzie or gave to him. Len Roberts also said further, if mackenzie was prepared to speak to Person seventeen as he did, on the recording. Did he have
similar conversations with other witnesses? If so, who and what did is say to them? Now Nine has denied any journalistic breaches or any breach of their legal strategies as well. They have launched a full defense accusing everyone else of a smear campaign without properly answering questions now to analyze
how this could affect the case. Joining me now is an expert in defamation law media law partner at HWL Absworth Lawyers, Nicholas Pull and Nicholas thank you for your time, and we should just add for full disclosure that you acted against Nine in a case representing an orthopedic surgeon. It's concluded, but it is awaiting final judgment. Now, Nicholas, what do you think the legal ramifications of this recording could be.
The ramifications really need to be assessed once, certainly once submissions are made and evidence which has to be provided by a fidavit material before first of May, as you've mentioned,
comes out. At the moment, it really is speculative concerning what impact this is going to have, but one can say quite clearly that what we're looking at are issues that go to credit of witnesses, and how that assessment of credit that was made by the trial judge in the case has been affected perhaps by the representations that have being made by Ben Robert Smith's lawyers.
So talking about that credit issue, then, in the judgment, the judge did not find Person seventeen's evidence sufficiently reliable to accept that her serious allegations were true, but he also did not accept Robert Smith's evidence regarding Person seventeen. So how could this rejection of Robert Smith's evidence in relation to Person seventeen have influenced potentially the judge's view of Ben Robert Smith's credibility when it then came to the war crimes witnesses and allegations.
Yeah, well, this.
Is certainly going to one of the very salient points in this matter. And I've also noticed some media commentators have in a sense tried to categorize the issues of credit carrying over from issues concerning Witness seventeen and other issues concerning what occurred in Afghanistan. Now, you can't box, you can't categorize a person's credit in relation to one set of instances and be ignorant or certainly not take them into account in the other instances in the same trial.
I think that this is certainly what this is certainly what Ben Robert Smith's lawyers will be going for. Ben, don't forget even though witness seventeen was not fully accepted credit wise in the trial judge assessment, it was preferred over the assessment made on many issues regarding Witness seventeen over Ben Roberts Smith by the trial judge.
Now, as I said, nine has said that they haven't breached their journalistic or legal ethics. Given we now know that Ben Robert Smith's emails were accessed both in relation to Person seventeen and in relation to his marriage breakdown, do you think it's reasonable to ask whether other emails were accessed in relation to other areas of the case.
Well, this is certainly the thrust of Ben Roberts Smith's lawyers. That is, that information has been accessed that was legally privileged. This is part of the information that they're looking for as to whether or not any other information has been accessed. So it really remains to be seen what the nature of that evidence, sorry, what the nature of that information
or that was gained. We can only speculate in relation to what that is and clearly it's not worth while going down that avenue right now.
So just explain to us how this appeal will work.
Look, that's a good question in the sense that it's not usual. I mean, after all, it's the appeal has occurred and there has been an application on for an amended appeal to take into account what is being said to be.
Well in the application, a miscarriage of justice.
Now it's been indicated that if the application is successful, it's been indicated that in fact a trial could happen before the full Court. At the moment, that's a bit up in the air. It's a bit hard to read the ruins on that one, but it has been mentioned by the judge hearing the application that that is a possibility it could be heard before the full court.
Not fascinating, all right, Nicholas Pullan, thank you very much for your insights tonight, and everyone, thank you so much for your company this week. Thanks for watching. Next week is going to be huge. We've got the Leader's debate on Tuesday night, first time Albanesi and Dutton will be up against each other. Then the treasure is debate on Wednesday night. It's all heating up. Have a lovely weekend, and right now, here's Paul Murray.